What about fuel mixing?

[Breakable]

Hopefully PB reactions will work out fine, but I am
just wondering if mixing different fuels can be used as yet another parameter to optimize output.
Of course none wants any neutrons if you can avoid them,
but might a small fraction of DD make PB reaction easier?

[Henning]

Or maybe Deuterium and Bor-10? With higher Deuterium contents? So first D-D reacts to T + p and He-3 + n, providing initial boost for D + B-10 reactions? Possibly the energy for the neutrons is wasted, though.

[Aeronaut]

Henning wrote: Or maybe Deuterium and Bor-10? With higher Deuterium contents? So first D-D reacts to T + p and He-3 + n, providing initial boost for D + B-10 reactions? Possibly the energy for the neutrons is wasted, though.

How would the shielding requirements change with this hybrid reaction? Also, what would happen to projected size, purchase price, and maintenance requirements?

[jamesr]

Interesting idea…

From previous work I gather the optimum ratio for the p+B11 is nearer 5 parts hydrogen to one part Boron to keep the average Z value down, and so lessen the bremstralung losses.

If you had a mix of deuterium gas with natural decaborane (which has chemical formula B10H14) with the boron in it having the natural 20:80 ratio of B-10 to B-11. Then you don’t have to worry about separating out the boron isotopes. The B-10 in the system can react both with the deuterium (I’ve no idea what the cross-section for this is), but also mop up some of the unwanted neutrons from the D-D reactions in the reaction n + B-10 -> Li-7 + He-4

The overall number of neutrons escaping would still be larger than pure p+B11 but if it gets over the hurdle to achieve ignition then it may be worth it.

[Breakable]

Would be nice to have a way of simulating all kinds of reactions and find the optimum fuel mix within specific parameters.
It is probably very hard to make a full DPF simulation?
What about 0-dimensional with only a few atoms of each fuel (hundreds or thousands)?
Would it be a lot of work to develop and computationally intensive calculation to make this type of simulation
and run a genetic (or just exhaustive) algorithm on all the atoms/ions/isotopes in the table
and finding out the best parameters for ignition and output?
I believe it would be pretty easy to make this run simulation on distributed network in case its computationally intensive, but does no require supercomputer.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote:

Or maybe Deuterium and Bor-10? With higher Deuterium contents? So first D-D reacts to T + p and He-3 + n, providing initial boost for D + B-10 reactions? Possibly the energy for the neutrons is wasted, though.

How would the shielding requirements change with this hybrid reaction? Also, what would happen to projected size, purchase price, and maintenance requirements?

Yes, it seems to me that increasing the neutron yield is asking for problems.

[Author]

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